What's your top guitar goal? Why do you play guitar?
The big reason why you picked up a guitar is important: It's your top guitar goal. Believe it or not, the way your top guitar goal is worded will affect how much fun you'll have playing guitar.
Isn't it a shame that most beginners never articulate this reason from the very beginning? I find that very odd.
If you haven't done it yet, now's the time. Why do you want to learn guitar? Or, why do you want to keep on learning and practicing guitar? If you have a top guitar goal in your mind, my suggestion is to write it down. We need to look closely at this goal, and we need to be honest about it, too.
So, if you have your top guitar goal written down, it's time to see if it's infected. If it's riddled with the bad stuff. What am I referring to? I'm referring to the biggest enemy to learning guitar: Urgency.
Do you notice a sense of urgency hidden in your goal? You won't do yourself any favors if you lie to yourself. Be honest. Does it? If it does, you're in for a hard time because guitar takes time, consistency, effort, energy, and money to learn. It'll be easier if you aren't in a rush.
Let's explore this concept in more detail, and let's see if we can make guitar a more pleasant experience for you overall by getting rid of urgency in your top guitar goal.
Why urgency and guitar goals don't mix
The word urgency implies emergency. That time is running out. It implies both stress and duress. The word almost always has a sense of pressure associated with it, like the goal must be completed as quickly and expeditiously as possible. It implies great haste.
Urgency is completely at odds with the most fundamental truth of learning guitar: Guitar takes time to learn.
You can’t rush the process of learning guitar. Too great a sense of urgency, and you’ll skip over the process of discovering, exploring, and slowly allowing the guitar to enrich your life. Too great a sense of urgency and you’ll focus on not-failing instead of just enjoying where you are and succeeding when you do.
There is no magic wand you can wave to help you learn guitar quickly. There is no way you can learn guitar overnight once you know the five secrets to playing, or whatever that's advertised as. There is no way you can learn guitar without being cool with how much time it will take.
A sense of urgency in your main reason for playing guitar, your top guitar goal, will undercut the energy and the time you need to spend to learn it.
You'll never learn guitar overnight.
Guitar cannot be learned overnight. Give the idea up! Once you pluck the urgency from your top guitar goal, you can focus on what really matters: the process of learning guitar. When you focus on the process, guitar will enrich your life.
First things first. We need to cover four different styles of goals in an effort to sculpt our top guitar goal. We need to talk about:
- Judgement-based guitar goals
- Comparison-based guitar goals
- Achievement-based guitar goals
- Deadline-based guitar goals
Let's make your top guitar goal amazing.